Should I install Windows XP on an Old Laptop?

[Guest]

I have an old IBM ThinkPad 600X, with 64MB System RAM and 448MHz Intel
Pentium III
Processor. It was originally a business laptop, running Windows NT 4, but
was resold
with 98SE.

If I upgrade the RAM to 192MB, would XP run well, or should I upgrade to
320MB? Is my processor good enough?

 

[Claymore]

I have an old IBM ThinkPad 600X, with 64MB System RAM and 448MHz Intel
Pentium III
Processor. It was originally a business laptop, running Windows NT 4, but
was resold
with 98SE.

If I upgrade the RAM to 192MB, would XP run well, or should I upgrade to
320MB? Is my processor good enough?

Hi,

You would definitely have to install more RAM - 512 MB is good. But
another problem would be the 448 MHz processor. While it meets minimum
standards for XP to function, you're going to find it quite sluggish.
With the added expense, I personally would not waste an XP
installation on it.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have an old IBM ThinkPad 600X, with 64MB System RAM and 448MHz
Intel Pentium III Processor.

It was originally a business laptop, running Windows NT 4, but was resold
with 98SE.

If I upgrade the RAM to 192MB, would XP run well, or should I
upgrade to 320MB? Is my processor good enough?

Well? No - that system will *never* run Windows XP 'well' in my opinion.

It'll run it - as it meets minimum specs. It'll get better as you give it
more RAM.
(I'd suggest 512MB+ for it to run 'acceptable' in Windows XP.)

Also to be considered and not mentioned: HDD size.

Does it have 4GB? 8GB?
With 4GB - you *can* do it - but you won't get much more out of it without
some serious cleaning.

With 8GB - you have some more wiggle-room, but you start installing
third-party stuff and not only would the machine just slow naturally - but
your space will get tight QUICK.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have an old IBM ThinkPad 600X, with 64MB System RAM and 448MHz Intel
Pentium III
Processor. It was originally a business laptop, running Windows NT 4, but
was resold
with 98SE.

If I upgrade the RAM to 192MB, would XP run well, or should I upgrade to
320MB? Is my processor good enough?

I'm afraid, given those specifications, that the the word "glacial"
comes to mind, and you'll want to upgrade to at least 512Mb of Ram and
probably a larger hard drive if you're planning on installing many
applications. The CPU will be the bottle-neck, I'm afraid. Frankly, I
wouldn't put any OS more demanding then WinNT or Win98 on that old a
platform; you almost certainly won't be able to find WinXP-compatible
device drivers for the laptop's components.

Acceptable performance is, of course, a matter of personal opinion
and depends entirely upon what *you* expect to do with your computer. If
all you want to do is play WinXP's built-in games, send and receive
simple emails, browse the Internet (while avoiding the more "ornamental"
web sites) etc., such a machine may well meet your needs. If, however,
you plan to take advantage of WinXP's multimedia capabilities, play
graphic-intensive games, or do advanced word or data processing, such a
machine would probably be woefully inadequate.

If you turn off all of WinXP GUI eye-candy, it will still be very
slow, but it might be usable for simple text editing, email,
web-browsing, etc. It won't be any good for graphics-intensive
applications, and most newer games. (During the public preview period,
I tested WinXP on a 500 MHz machine with 256 Mb of RAM, and it was much
slower than I like.)

To help improve WinXP's performance on older machines:

1) Right-click the Task Bar > Properties > Start Menu, ensure "Classic
Start menu" is selected.

2) Right-click an empty spot on the Desktop > Properties > Themes >
select "Windows Classic."

3) Right-click My Computer > Properties > Performance > Settings >
Visual Effects, ensure "Adjust for best performance" is selected.



--

Bruce Chambers

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[V Green]

If you can, find a copy Windows 2000. It should
run well on that machine. XP doesn't really add
anything you need over 2K except overhead that
slows things down.

(now awaiting flames from the XP or the "whatever's the latest
has got to be the greatest" minions - I stick by what I said
having run both extensively on many different hardware
platforms).

 

[Guest]

At one time, I had installed XP Home on the machine, with a 128MB stick of
RAM added. It was slow, but everything worked. I uninstalled XP and put 98
back on.

When my laptop hard drive failed a couple of years back, I took out the 128
stick and gave it to another friend. Recently, though, I have been doing more
traveling, and am finding the need for a laptop growing. I don't want to
spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a new laptop, if I can get this one
going for $60-70. I already bought a 40GB HD, and installed Win 98 again, but
I'm finding it very limited even for simple word processing, email, and Web
browsing.

I have looked into Win 2000, and someone in a Win 2000 discussion group
suggested buying RAM from ebay. I looked at NewEgg, and found laptop RAM
extremely cheap, and am considering buying a couple of sticks.

With all fancy features in XP turned off, would it run OK with 320MB and my
processor, or would I be better off sticking with 2000 Pro?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have an old IBM ThinkPad 600X, with 64MB System RAM and 448MHz Intel
Pentium III
Processor. It was originally a business laptop, running Windows NT 4, but
was resold
with 98SE.

If I upgrade the RAM to 192MB, would XP run well,

No.


or should I upgrade to
320MB? Is my processor good enough?

Personally, I would not try to run Windows XP with anything less than
256MB of RAM. Performance will be terrible. It depends on what apps
you run, but even 256MB isn't enough for some people and they don't
see good performance without going to 512MB.

A 448MHz processor is at the very bottom of the range of what could be
acceptable for Windows XP. For several years, my wife ran XP on a
400MHz P2 with 256MB of RAM. The machine was very slow, but her needs
were slim (E-mail, occasional web browsing, some light word
processing), so she was satisfied with it. But few people would be.

For decent performance, you would need to upgrade both the processor
and RAM. You didn't mention the size of the hard drive, but that might
need upgrading too. If it's even possible to do all this on your
laptop, the cost would probably be prohibitive. You also might run
into problems getting drivers for some of the hardware on such an old
machine. It would likely to be cheaper to just buy a more modern
laptop.

If it were me, I wouldn't consider doing it.

 

[Guest]

It's a 6month old 40GB HDD. Cost me about $45. A RAM upgrade will cost around
$25.
From the responses I have received in this thread and a W2K thread, I think
I will upgrade my RAM to a little over 128MB and install 2000 Pro.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

At one time, I had installed XP Home on the machine, with a 128MB
stick of RAM added. It was slow, but everything worked. I
uninstalled XP and put 98 back on.

When my laptop hard drive failed a couple of years back, I took out
the 128 stick and gave it to another friend. Recently, though, I
have been doing more traveling, and am finding the need for a
laptop growing. I don't want to spend hundreds or thousands of
dollars on a new laptop, if I can get this one going for $60-70. I
already bought a 40GB HD, and installed Win 98 again, but I'm
finding it very limited even for simple word processing, email, and
Web browsing.

I have looked into Win 2000, and someone in a Win 2000 discussion
group suggested buying RAM from ebay. I looked at NewEgg, and found
laptop RAM extremely cheap, and am considering buying a couple of
sticks.

With all fancy features in XP turned off, would it run OK with
320MB and my processor, or would I be better off sticking with 2000
Pro?

I am betting your 'at one time' was when you didn't have access to faster
machines, when there was no SP2 (or possibly even SP1) and dial-up was your
only internet connectivity.

As everyone (just about) has stated...
It will not run well with that system.

Even if you put the 320MB memory into it, even though you have a 40GB HDD
and even if you minimize all the startups, etc - it's gonna be painful. 5+
minutes to boot, 5+ minutes to logon, 2-4 minutes to start up your web
client, everything after that will be using the swap file. If you don't
close your web client first - opeing other things will just make it worse.
Multi-tasking goes way south - since just using the system would be painful.

However - that is my opinion. Maybe the fastest system you have is a 600MHz
with 320MB memory and a 8MB video card - and this will seem fine to you.
But all you are actually doing is spending money on dead technology to avoid
what you will have to do sooner or later anyway... Spend a little more on
something that will actually keep up with your needs.

Example finds:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Lprice=200&Hprice=499.99&CatId=17

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2030080032 4020&bop=And&Order=PRICE

All of those are better - even the one with 256MB memory - than what you
have.
All of them cost less than $500.

Might get a nice Dell Refurbished laptop...
http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

Worst case - with 320MB, all the startups disabled, only what you *need* on
it - you could probably get away with using it for a year or so with Windows
2000 Professional as long as your needs and patiences doesn't wear thin...
But that laptop was not made for any modern operating systems.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

If you can, find a copy Windows 2000. It should
run well on that machine. XP doesn't really add
anything you need over 2K except overhead that
slows things down.

(now awaiting flames from the XP or the "whatever's the latest
has got to be the greatest" minions - I stick by what I said
having run both extensively on many different hardware
platforms).

Although you can turn much of the 'overhead' off... you're right.

 

[Guest]

I see your point. Problem is, I don't have the money to spend on a brand new
laptop. I have a powerful desktop computer, with 2.16GHz processor, 1GB RAM,
250GB HDD, 20in Widescreen HD display, but I can't take it with me. At the
time of purchasing this desktop, I considered a laptop, but that would have
been over $1000 more than the $2500 desktop.

This laptop will not be used for much, just checking email and word
processing when I am away from home. I hear everyone loud and clear that XP
is not the OS for this laptop, and I do not plan on installing it. But if
upgrading RAM to run 2000 will only cost me $25, I'm gonna do it.

I thank you and everyone else for their insight. It has really helped.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

At one time, I had installed XP Home on the machine, with a 128MB
stick of RAM added. It was slow, but everything worked. I
uninstalled XP and put 98 back on.

When my laptop hard drive failed a couple of years back, I took out
the 128 stick and gave it to another friend. Recently, though, I
have been doing more traveling, and am finding the need for a
laptop growing. I don't want to spend hundreds or thousands of
dollars on a new laptop, if I can get this one going for $60-70. I
already bought a 40GB HD, and installed Win 98 again, but I'm
finding it very limited even for simple word processing, email, and
Web browsing.

I have looked into Win 2000, and someone in a Win 2000 discussion
group suggested buying RAM from ebay. I looked at NewEgg, and found
laptop RAM extremely cheap, and am considering buying a couple of
sticks.

With all fancy features in XP turned off, would it run OK with
320MB and my processor, or would I be better off sticking with 2000
Pro?

I am betting your 'at one time' was when you didn't have access to
faster machines, when there was no SP2 (or possibly even SP1) and
dial-up was your only internet connectivity.

As everyone (just about) has stated...
It will not run well with that system.

Even if you put the 320MB memory into it, even though you have a
40GB HDD and even if you minimize all the startups, etc - it's
gonna be painful. 5+ minutes to boot, 5+ minutes to logon, 2-4
minutes to start up your web client, everything after that will be
using the swap file. If you don't close your web client first -
opeing other things will just make it worse. Multi-tasking goes way
south - since just using the system would be painful.

However - that is my opinion. Maybe the fastest system you have is
a 600MHz with 320MB memory and a 8MB video card - and this will
seem fine to you. But all you are actually doing is spending money
on dead technology to avoid what you will have to do sooner or
later anyway... Spend a little more on something that will
actually keep up with your needs.

Example finds:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Lprice=200&Hprice=499.99&CatId=17

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2030080032 4020&bop=And&Order=PRICE

All of those are better - even the one with 256MB memory - than
what you have.
All of them cost less than $500.

Might get a nice Dell Refurbished laptop...
http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

Worst case - with 320MB, all the startups disabled, only what you
*need* on it - you could probably get away with using it for a year
or so with Windows 2000 Professional as long as your needs and
patiences doesn't wear thin... But that laptop was not made for any
modern operating systems.

I see your point. Problem is, I don't have the money to spend on a
brand new laptop. I have a powerful desktop computer, with 2.16GHz
processor, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 20in Widescreen HD display, but I
can't take it with me. At the time of purchasing this desktop, I
considered a laptop, but that would have been over $1000 more than
the $2500 desktop.

This laptop will not be used for much, just checking email and word
processing when I am away from home. I hear everyone loud and clear
that XP is not the OS for this laptop, and I do not plan on
installing it. But if upgrading RAM to run 2000 will only cost me
$25, I'm gonna do it.

I thank you and everyone else for their insight. It has really
helped.

Although I am glad you made your decision...
I think spending the $25 won't be the end (nor that it will even just be $25
and it will be on top of any money already spent...)

I think that if you tripled/quadrupled the processor power, quadrupled or
even got 8x the RAM in a system for under $500 (not $2500 like you stated,
not even $1000.. 1/2 that or less) - you would be able to run Windows XP and
all of your applications with more confidence and definitely - better
compatibility, less patience required and more support in general.

However - I know people who get along JUST FINE using Windows 98 on laptops
that make your look like it is an indy race car. So whatever floats your
boat and keeps you sane. Just wanted you to know there are many opptions
for under $500 and some even in the $200-$400 range that would make your
laptop - even with all the additional RAM you could give it - look like a
sloth on the indy track. ;-)

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have an old IBM ThinkPad 600X, with 64MB System RAM and 448MHz Intel
Pentium III
Processor. It was originally a business laptop, running Windows NT 4, but
was resold
with 98SE.

If I upgrade the RAM to 192MB, would XP run well, or should I upgrade to
320MB? Is my processor good enough?

It might be technically possible to run XP on this system, but I would
personally not bother. Memory for these older systems is actually pretty
expensive, since it no longer has the enconomies of scale current production
has. You'd probably find that a small amount of the old-style memory
required, if you can find it, costs more than nearly a gigabyte of
new-style memory. You may see laptop RAM cheap at stores, but be very
careful as yours will not accept new-style memory.

Laptops also can tend to be very picky about the memory used, and may not
run at all if it doesn't like the timing characteristics of the RAM you put
in.

As to running "well", I would personally not consider that system capable of
running XP well. It may not crash, but it will be slow, in both startup
and operation, and you won't be able to do much about it or with it. It
probably also has a small hard disk that will be quickly cramped.

If you want to use it, go ahead, and the more memory the better, though
better won't be particularly good.

The laptop I generally use is an older Thinkpad, an R31, with a 1 gHz
celeron and 760 meg ram. It actually runs XP Pro pretty well.

Pretty much the biggest cost item in a laptop is the screen. These have
dropped in price dramatically as production methods have improved, and with
that, laptop prices have plummeted. Oddly, perhaps, because of this new
ones can be cheaper than old ones. You can find excellent laptops brand new
with an OS installed and plenty of memory for well under a thousand dollars.

HTH
-pk

 

[Daave]

It's a 6month old 40GB HDD. Cost me about $45. A RAM upgrade will
cost around $25.
From the responses I have received in this thread and a W2K thread, I
think I will upgrade my RAM to a little over 128MB and install 2000
Pro.

Why not run Windows 98SE?

 

[David Starr]

It's a 6month old 40GB HDD. Cost me about $45. A RAM upgrade will cost around
$25.
From the responses I have received in this thread and a W2K thread, I think
I will upgrade my RAM to a little over 128MB and install 2000 Pro.

Thanks for all the help.

Was it me, I'd stick with 98SE. I have an aging Dell Inspirion
laptop with 98SE on it. It runs MS Office, Mozilla, VC6, all my CAD
programs just fine. It boots faster than my new 2something gigahz XP
running desktop. Plus all the new virii are tailored to go for XP and
Vista.

David Starr

 

[Shenan Stanley]

It's a 6month old 40GB HDD. Cost me about $45. A RAM upgrade will
cost around $25.
From the responses I have received in this thread and a W2K
thread, I think I will upgrade my RAM to a little over 128MB and
install 2000 Pro.

Why not run Windows 98SE?

From elsewhere in this conversation...

At one time, I had installed XP Home on the machine, with a 128MB
stick of RAM added. It was slow, but everything worked. I
uninstalled XP and put 98 back on.

When my laptop hard drive failed a couple of years back, I took out
the 128 stick and gave it to another friend. Recently, though, I
have been doing more traveling, and am finding the need for a
laptop growing. I don't want to spend hundreds or thousands of
dollars on a new laptop, if I can get this one going for $60-70. I
already bought a 40GB HD, and installed Win 98 again, but I'm
finding it very limited even for simple word processing, email, and
Web browsing.

<snipped>

That should cover why not run Windows 98SE. ;-)
(Last sentence if you missed it.)

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Was it me, I'd stick with 98SE. I have an aging Dell Inspirion
laptop with 98SE on it. It runs MS Office, Mozilla, VC6, all my CAD
programs just fine. It boots faster than my new 2something gigahz
XP running desktop. Plus all the new virii are tailored to go for
XP and Vista.

Mostly because with the lack of security in Windows 9x OSes as far as the
Internet is concerned (and the lack of compatibility with current external
hardware devices that might get installed, older vulnerable browsers and a
tendency to more easily get infested by the current scourge of the Internet
(spyware/adware) because of the lack of security...) - there is no need to
have some sophisticated virus/worm attack when someone could just take over
without much effort. heh

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I see your point. Problem is, I don't have the money to spend on a brand new
laptop. I have a powerful desktop computer, with 2.16GHz processor, 1GB RAM,
250GB HDD, 20in Widescreen HD display, but I can't take it with me. At the
time of purchasing this desktop, I considered a laptop, but that would have
been over $1000 more than the $2500 desktop.

This laptop will not be used for much, just checking email and word
processing when I am away from home. I hear everyone loud and clear that XP
is not the OS for this laptop, and I do not plan on installing it. But if
upgrading RAM to run 2000 will only cost me $25, I'm gonna do it.

My guess is that it will cost you more than $25, but it's your choice.

If I were in your shoes, and didn't have or didn't want to spend the
$500 or so that a new laptop would cost, I would leave the old machine
as is, and use it with Windows 98. It should be just fine for E-mail
and word processing.

A newer operating system isn't always better than an old one, and if
what you have meets your needs, then stick with it and don't go
looking for trouble. There is *always* a risk of problems whenever you
upgrade.

 

[Guest]

On my desktop computer, I do print publications, video editing, and Web
design. I needed a system that was powerful, thus the hefty price tag. When I
bought my desktop, it would have been over $1000 for a laptop with all of my
necessary hardware. So, I stuck with the desktop.

I don't plan on doing all of this graphic design work on the road. I just
need something for communication purposes - email, Web, wp. I understand that
upgrading the laptop is a temp. solution, but its all I can afford. I have
found compatible RAM for it that will cost me around $25, and, as long as I
can check my email with relatively no hassle, I will be happy. I have one
powerful computer, I don't need another.

I understand the point you are making, If the price for a laptop that meets
the needs that my desktop fulfills was cheaper, I would have bought one. But,
with more RAM & W2K, this laptop should suffice for 2+ years, and by then, I
should have enough money to purchase a new high-end laptop.

I completely agree with your point, but as a student, I can't afford it.

 

[Guest]

I am running Win 98 SE. The point is - I don't want to. I have problems
running newer programs (browser, av, firewall, etc), and there is no security
to speak of.

According to everyone here, XP will run too slowly, which I sort-of
expected, but I wanted the opinions of others.

According to responses in other groups, 2000 Pro will run smoothly with a
memory upgrade. Its cheap, and will last me a couple of more years. That's
good enough for me.